


A Nation Given Form

by Mithrigil



Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: 5+1 Things, Childhood, F/M, Growing Up Together, Nudity, Part 1 is the build, Part 2 is the porn, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-22 22:43:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6096337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Yona saw Hak naked.</p><p>(And once she beat him to it.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Nation Given Form

**1.**

On the one hand, whenever the leaders of the Five Tribes came together at Hiryuu Castle, lots of new and interesting people came with them.

On the other hand, at three years old Yona wasn’t quite able to understand the concept of “on the one hand”, because on the other, a meeting of the Five Tribes meant that her beloved mother and father might as well not be there for an entire week. Of course, once the convocation was over the baby princess would be rolling in new toys from far-off cities and beautiful clothes to grow into and sweets too pretty to eat. 

Try telling that to a three-year-old.

All those promises of future fancies fell on deaf ears. So did present presents, like her favorite blanket, her music box, her softest stuffed tiger. Tiny Yona had been wailing so hard that her face matched her hair, and the maids despaired of it completely, sat with their backs to the princess’s bedroom door. Surely the tantrum would end soon. Surely someone would be able to fetch the Queen from whatever diplomacy she was engaged in before someone mistook the bawling toddler for a garrison alarm.

“No!” someone else yelled from the castle gates, even louder than Yona. “I don’t wanna go!”

Inexplicably, Yona stopped crying.

The child outside kept railing on, a storey below and at least twenty yards away. Mun-Deok, General of the Wind Tribe, was dragging a recalcitrant boy of about five years old past the increasingly amused guards. “No! _No!_ I don’t wanna see the stupid king! I don’t wanna wear the stupid headband!”

Up in her room, Yona crawled up from the carpet to her window-seat just in time to see Mun-Deok grab the little boy by the scruff of his neck like a cat and lift him clean off the ground. “Listen here, Hak. You don’t call his Majesty stupid.”

“I don’t care!” The boy kicked and screamed, hard enough that Mun-Deok had to swing him around just to keep up. “It’s stupid! The headband is stupid!”

“You will wear that headband or you will wear nothing!” Mun-Deok said, in a voice that brooked no argument.

Well, little Hak didn’t argue.

He twisted out of Mun-Deok’s grip and tore down the courtyard, ripping off all of his clothes as he ran.

Yona burst out laughing, and didn’t stop until the concerted efforts of Mun-Deok and Captain Joo-Doh cornered Hak on the battlements, naked as the day he was born.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad, when the Five Tribes met.

 

**2.**

“But why can’t I go in the bath anymore?” Yona asked, with a great deal less politeness than befit her station.

King Il despaired of answering without starting conversations he rather didn’t want to have. “Yona, dear...it’s not that you can’t go in the bath. It’s that it would be much nicer having your own bath. Aren’t Hak and Soo-Won noisy?”

“Noisy has nothing to do with baths,” Yona said. There was a certain imperious matter-of-factness to her tone these days--these months, really. Sometime in the years since her mother had died, grief became more of a back-light to all of Yona’s other concerns, and at eight-and-a-half, she had plenty of those. “I never get to see Soo-Won anymore! Now I can’t see him in the baths too? It’s not fair!”

Il propped his elbow on the desk, hung his head in his hand. His daughter and his nephew sharing a bed had been cute enough these last two years, but not harmless. Even if Yona hadn’t been showing signs of puppy-love for her cousin, it simply wasn’t prudent to let a boy old enough to know the difference bed down with her. And politically unsound, to boot. Especially after--

\--he couldn’t permit himself think about this. He couldn’t _afford_ to think about this.

Yona, having no knowledge of Il’s feelings whatsoever, continued. “Soo-Won took care of me after mama died! Now uncle Yoo-Hon is dead, so I have to take care of him! Don’t you see? It’s my turn!”

“Yona, it’s not appropriate!” Il didn’t quite shout. But it was enough to send Yona stomping out of the room.

Perhaps Il waited a little too long to send extra guards to the bathhouse.

*

Yona, of course, knew every secret passage in the palace, and even if she didn’t quite know _every_ rotation of the guards she had a general idea of how to avoid them. And guards, at the bathhouse, were more concerned with taking baths than not letting little princesses take them. So Yona snuck around to the side-entrance, and hid under a stack of towels until the coast was clear.

Then she just walked in as if she owned the place, because someday, she would.

Soo-Won was already in the water, but Hak was still cleaning off first, and they both noticed her at about the same time. Yona waved. Soo-Won waved back. Hak sputtered and covered his private parts with a bucket.

“Hello, Yona!” Soo-Won chirped, smiling up to his eyes. “Are you joining us?”

“Yes,” Yona said, at the precise moment Hak shouted, “No!”

Both Soo-Won and Yona looked at Hak incredulously. Hak may not have gotten in the bath yet, but he was certainly pink all over as if he’d been in it for hours. “She can’t,” Hak went on. “It’s not appropriate.”

“You don’t have the right to tell me what I can and can’t do!” Yona flounced over to the shelves and started taking off her robes. “If you don’t like me taking a bath with Soo-Won, you can leave.”

“I was here first!”

“Well, _I’m_ your princess and you have to do what I say. So if you don’t like it, _leave._ ”

“Fine, I’ll leave. And I’ll tell his Majesty.”

Yona blanched. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“I would. It’s my _job_.” Hak grinned, which looked awfully strange what with him holding on to the bucket. “So just go and I won’t rat you out.”

For a moment, Yona considered the validity of Hak’s none-too-generous offer.

The moment passed. Instead, she took his clothes off the shelf and threw them into the water.

“There.” She clapped her hands triumphantly. “You’re not going anywhere until those are dry.”

Hak dropped the bucket, abject terror canvassing his face and a bright flush canvassing his--

Yona blinked. “Hak, why is it all red?”

For the second time in his young life, Hak ran naked through the palace grounds. This time, though, he had every intention of fulfilling the function of his station.

(Soo-Won, for his part, just sat in the bath and smiled.)

 

**3.**

Officially, Hak became Yona’s bodyguard a year ago, on his fifteenth birthday. The appointment was a gift, in some ways, and a chore in others. Yona knew this, because Hak took _every opportunity_ to tell her how annoying it was to deal with her all the time.

“Well, fine!” she shouted, while he rolled on the floor laughing. “If you hate my dancing so much, don’t watch me practice!”

“Someone has to,” he chuckled, holding his gut. “If you keep walking like a chicken, you might fall and break your beak.”

She kicked him in the head. It was, perhaps, not a very regal thing to do, but Hak deserved it. “I do not dance like a chicken!”

“Yeah, that’s because you can’t call that _dancing_.”

Since kicking him in the head didn’t seem to be working, this time Yona kicked him in the hip. Harder.

The dancing master graciously suggested that Yona was not in any danger, and that it might help her concentration if she could dance without a young man in the room. Hak took advantage of the reprieve, and his leave.

“Is my dancing really that chicken-like?” Yona asked.

“Of course not, your highness!” The dancing master bowed, all smiles. “That boor simply does not know grace when he sees it.”

“That’s certainly true.” Hak had no sense of _culture_. Not like Soo-Won, who moved as if he could tread on clouds and smiled like a work of art. Soo-Won would appreciate Yona’s dancing for sure! So she committed to practicing for another hour, until she could be sure that there was no hint of poultry in her steps.

*

After dancing, and a long soak in the baths, Yona couldn’t help but wonder if she should apologize. After all, she shouldn’t have subjected Hak to watching her dance in the first place. He may be a big meanie, but he took his guard duties very seriously, and even if he didn’t understand or appreciate what she was doing he’d certainly feel compelled to watch her. Sometimes she could feel his eyes on her when she was only walking in the palace gardens, or laughing with her maids, or doing calligraphy, or any number of harmless things with harmless people. So, she thought, maybe Hak was only cranky because he was tired of watching. Yona certainly understood what it’s like to be bored, but compelled to keep up appearances: she often found herself dozing off during court functions.

Well, perhaps she should be gracious and apologize! So she had a servant pluck her some fresh lychee nuts from the orchard, and arranged them in a small basket to take to Hak’s room.

When he’d accepted his appointment as a her bodyguard, Hak stopped staying in the Generals’ wing with Mun-Deok, and was given a room two doors down from Yona’s apartments. Yona had only been in it once since, and earnestly hoped that Hak had taken some time to decorate it.

She came up to the door, shifted her grip on the basket, and raised her hand to knock--

\--and heard Hak groan. The same groan he’d made when she kicked him.

Oh no! Maybe she kicked him too hard--or worse, someone was fighting him in his room! “Hak!” she yelled, yanking open the door. “Are you all right?”

Hak, it turned out, was sitting on his bed, his back to the wall. And sweating as if he’d been fighting for hours. And _naked_. With one hand on his bruised hip, and the other between his--

The next few moments passed very quickly. Hak looked up. Yona dropped the basket. Hak’s eyes met Yona’s. A lychee nut rolled all the way to the foot of the bed and bounced off Hak’s instep. Hak’s skin flushed precisely as red and prickly as the fruit.

Yona was uncertain whether her shriek of “I’m sorry!” or his bellowed “Princess, get out!” happened first.

Either way, she turned around and snapped the door shut. “I didn’t see anything!” she called over her shoulder. “I promise! I--the nuts are for you!” Her face burned all the way to her hairline. “You don’t have to watch me dance anymore, all right? Bye now!”

She took off down the hall, but behind her, Hak’s door rustled open. “Princess,” he said, his voice somehow thicker, more harried. “Are you all right?”

“Just fine!” She turned around and smiled, but kept her eyes tactfully closed. “Perfectly fine!”

Even though he was a whole length away, she could feel his breath heating the air between them. Two more deep breaths, and one long sigh, and he apologized too. Just one simple “Sorry.”

Yona cracked her eyes open: Hak was covered, at least, in his loose underrobe and a dark sash bunched over his groin. But he was hanging his head, and still blushing all over. Angry, or ashamed, Yona couldn’t be sure.

But then, she’d never known Hak to be ashamed of anything. And his body was--well. Nothing to be ashamed of. He was lean and strong and growing into those weird big arms of his, and hard all over, and Soo-Won was probably starting to look the same under his robes, and...

Yona covered her face with her hands and bolted back to her own rooms. “Anyway enjoy the fruit I’ll knock harder next time bye Hak see you at dinner!” And she shut herself in her room before she said or did anything stupider.

Even though Hak wouldn’t meet her eyes at dinner, Yona’s blush didn’t subside until the following morning.

 

**4.**

The world outside the castle was all muck and brambles. Maybe it always had been. Maybe all the light of home would never come down again. Maybe Soo-Won had killed that too.

Broken, damp ground passed beneath Yona’s feet. She wasn’t sure she was walking on it. Hak led her, or pulled her--no. Steered her. She kept falling forward, and he turned falling into walking. That’s all this was. That’s all anything was.

He’d stop to drink. He’d cup his hands and try to pour water down her throat. Sometimes it would work. They’d sleep, or at least sit with their backs to a crag, and he’d tuck her under his long vest to stave off the cold. Sleep...wasn’t that different than being awake, actually. She was still just falling, and he was still just keeping her face from hitting the ground. The world was cold, wet, and empty, and her dreams were the same.

A falcon screeched overhead--she woke, bundled in Hak’s clothes--and Hak wasn’t there.

Terror froze Yona to the rocks. Her breath caught in her throat, wouldn’t move in or out. Hak was gone too. Hak was gone and Yona had nothing, was nothing, had _no one_ left--

The knot in her throat came out as a scream, like the predator bird’s in the sky. It echoed, and the wind howled back, hoarse and thin.

“Princess!” Hak stumbled out of the trees, panting, a sharpened stick dragging in his bare hand. A fish. He’d gone to catch a fish. The fish’s cold blood dribbled out around the plugged wound in its belly and Yona cringed into the ground, pulled Hak’s clothes around her as if the cloth could swallow her alive. If this was alive.

Hak skidded forward, knelt against her, and pulled her body to his with one strong, wet arm. All of his clothes were crushed between them, and it only now occurred to Yona that Hak wasn’t wearing them. His skin was slick and cool, his shoulders a knot of hard scars and fresh scabs from the battle in the castle courtyard, and his hair dripped against her cheek, cold river water speeding the hot tears down Yona’s face.

“I haven’t left,” he breathed, holding her tight. “I’ll never leave you.”

She couldn’t answer except to hold his body, to take the infinite warmth he offered so freely.

 

**5.**

It was Yona’s turn to change the bandages. Yoon had more than enough to deal with, to the tune of three only-recently-healed convalescent dragons plus Zeno, plus food. To be honest, she was looking forward to it. Anything Yona could do to help, she’d gladly do!

Which left her facing Hak’s naked back.

They sat by a nearby brook, in the shade of a thick-boughed, leafless tree. Hak spread his long vest on the ground and shrugged out of the top half of his robe, leaving the rest pooled around his waist. The used bandages were already slipping down his skin, heavy and heat-crisped, and Yona knelt behind him to peel them off the rest of the way, and there it was: Hak’s ruins of skin.

_Ruins,_ Yona thought, wasn’t quite the right word. It was scars over scars, new and old, bronze and white and pink, some as thick as a blade and some as thin as paper. The ones from the battle on the edge of Kai were mostly thin, and an angry dark red that still broke at the touch, crumbled under Yona’s fingers. She thought of Kalgan’s father’s words, that the people on the ground were the ones to suffer when armies clashed on their nations’ behalf. How the land itself belonged to no one: though it was trampled under thousands of hooves and watered with blood, the people still built their homes and tilled their fields no matter how many times they burned, no matter which nation laid claim to their taxes.

Not ruins of skin: a _village_ of skin. A plot of land, fertile and living, nurtured by a spirit that could only endure and grow its home anew. The scars of contested territory, of fields grown from ash. The stretch of time over well-worn paths; the cradle of his spear in the divot of his right shoulder, the calluses of bracers on his forearms, the hills of his back and the ridges of his spine persisting no matter how many lesions crossed them. He went on, warm and strong and eternal, no matter how much strife he saw.

Hak’s body was Kouka.

Heat pooled under Yona’s skin, but her hands froze on his shoulders.

“Something wrong?” Hak asked, sudden and smirking.

Yona scooted back, her palms slick. “Nothing! Just got distracted.”

His shoulders ruffled, like a preening bird. “See something you like, Princess?”

Whether that was true or not, Yona harrumphed, and busied herself with the jar of balm Yoon had distilled from the senjusou. It wouldn’t open. She still wasn’t strong enough: not to open a jar, not to protect Hak. Not yet. But she would be, and his scars would fade, and he’d flourish. And he’d be with her forever.

Hak looked over his shoulder, and Yona fumbled the jar again. When he sighed and extended a hand, an offer to help, she shook her head and twisted harder. The stopper popped out and went flying into the underbrush, and Hak sighed again and got up to fetch it.

Under the weight of the rest of his clothes, his pants fell to his ankles.

Yona dropped the jar.


End file.
